Good news, the threat of severe storms slamming the Philadelphia region Friday afternoon has become far lesser.
The threat of violent thunderstorms that were expected to hit with downpours, hail and strong winds Friday, diminished as the day went on causing the NBC10 First Alert Weather Team to cancel an earlier First Alert Weather warning.
"The low level clouds and the cold air are just not budging," said NBC10 First Alert Weather Chief meteorologist Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz.
The morning started off cold -- only in the 30s in South Jersey and the Poconos -- with bouts of heavy rain mixed with periods of drizzle as a heavy fog hung over Philadelphia's skyline.
"The cold air and the low clouds are firmly established here... it's hard to get cold dense air moved out," said Glenn.
"It becomes difficult to predict when that cold air is going to retreat and allow the warm air to come up. And very often the computer models overestimate how fast that is going to happen and this is the case this time."
The cold air is denser than warm air so it leaves when it wants to rather than being pushed out in most cases.
"You have to break some of these low clouds. The ingredients in order to create these thunderstorms are warmer air at the surface than this is higher up," said Glenn. "If we don't warm up the ground we don't have the ingredients for thunderstorms."
The line of storms, which slammed the Midwest Thursday, will still pass over central Pennsylvania and start approaching Philly. But with much less power as temps fight to get into the 60s.
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"The front with the rain comes through later this afternoon and evening," said Glenn.
The wet weather will be mostly over for much of the Delaware Valley around 9 p.m., but the chance of showers remains as the night winds down.
A west wind will then push the wet weather out and, luckily, the weekend still appears to be a winner.
"This has no impact on the weekend at all... It will be a beautiful and sunny weekend," said Glenn.
